


Growth Spurt

by Loudest_Voice



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surprisingly, Itachi's fifteenth birthday is not a blast even though he didn't murder his entire family. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growth Spurt

The party wasn't for him. Itachi figured that much when Boar produced a keg full of sake when he knew perfectly well Itachi refused to touch the stuff. A few of his comrades had tried to make him down fifteen shots but he'd adamantly refused. Others had tried their best to engage him in conversation but they'd all given up when Tiger produced an old radio and blasted the abandoned warehouse they were using with really bad music.

Itachi supposed it was his fault for being so bad at socializing. He looked up at the dim dance floor, momentarily considering if he shouldn't at least _try_ to make some bonds with his comrades. His brief wish to join the celebration evaporated when he spotted Eiji-- _Wasp_ , he corrected himself--slow dancing with Butterfly. They were more swaying really, Butterfly practically standing on her tiptoes to reach Eiji's neck, both probably drunk into incoherency by now. Itachi really hated alcohol. It tasted so bad that he couldn't understand how anyone managed to drink enough to get drunk in the first place. He hated any and all missions that forced him to pretend to drink in order to not attract attention to himself. 

" _Please_ , tell me that's not work," said Kakashi, gesturing at the notebook Itachi had open on his lap, visible eyebrow furrowed in a half-hidden grimace.

"It's not work," lied Itachi, shooting Eiji one last glare before focusing on the missions he was supposed to be assigning. Boar's squad could escort the _daimyo's_ second son during next week's negotiation with the minor general from the Eastern samurai coalition. Eagle would track down that chunin who'd stolen a batch of S-rank mission reports for the spirits only knew what.

Itachi himself would personally travel to Kusagakure and rescue the rich merchant's son they were holding hostage. The son of rich merchants who lived in  _Konoha._ At some point, the Hidden Grass would have to get over The Third Ninja War. _Konoha_ had mostly moved on. Or they would if Kusa would just stop trying to sabotage them. Itachi mentally shook his head and decided that choosing the right subordinates for the rescue mission would be critical. Fighting in Grass country was always a mess.

Still, Itachi would take any excuse to give himself a break from dealing with Konoha's internal disciplinary squads. Or "temporary" police force. When he broke off with his clan, he'd stupidly assumed he'd at least be spared the tedium of directly overseeing Konoha's civilians. He'd been wrong. Ironically, his betrayal had landed him in the same job as his father  _faster._

"You realize that eventually everyone's going to forget you even _have_ a birthday," Kakashi said before flipping over a page of his latest Make-Out Paradise novel. "The only person who remembers mine is Guy and you do _not_ want to know what he considers a celebration. Go and have a dance or something."

" _You_ go and have a dance."

"I don't want to."

"Neither do I," said Itachi.

"Ah, teenage angst." Kakashi let out an exagerrated sigh. "What I wouldn't give to be sulking at my own birthday party, hunched over boring reports and shooting random glares at the dance floor while I _choose_ to work by a dim candle."

" _You're_  reading by a dim candle at a birthday party instead of dancing," pointed out Itachi, wishing that he hadn't bothered to ask Boar to keep the music low enough to allow conversation. "Why is it only sulking when _I_ do it?"

"It's not my party," argued Kakashi, flipping another page.

"No, it's _my_ party and I'll work if I want to."

Kakashi's only response was an amused chuckle.

For a moment, Itachi felt like breaking his nose. Too bad that ignoring Kakashi would be the smart thing to do.

Holding back an exasperated grunt, he looked down at his notebook and focused his attention on the rescue mission once more. They had recent pictures of the small, blond child. Hawk would be essential. With his Byakugan, looking for the merchant's boy wouldn't take more than a few hours. A 360 degree field of vision spanning nearly 500 meters would make most searches almost insultingly easy. Next, Itachi mentally went over the list of available female ANBU, thinking that it was always prudent to take a woman on missions that might call for infiltration. He decided on Wolf. She was a deceptively frail looking woman of average looks and almost never attracted attention to herself. But she was quick, both physically and mentally. 

Of course, he needed to select a healer. More tentatively than he would've liked to admit, he looked towards the dance floor. Wasp was now entangled with . . . a guy Itachi didn't recognize without his mask.

Itachi looked down at his notebook and stared down at the words _Hawk_ and _Wolf,_ trying not to think about what it meant that he could recognize porcelain masks more readily than the faces behind them. Did he even know the people whose lives he risked on a regular basis? 

Well, he knew Wasp well enough. _Eiji,_ he corrected himself a second time. Was he really the best medic to take along? Technically speaking, he wasn't the _best_ healer in ANBU . . . but he was the strongest fighter _among_ the healers, proficient enough at taijutsu and ninjutsu that he didn't need to be constantly guarded as long as he wasn't actually healing someone. Regardless, Eiji was borderline insubordinate with Itachi, never shy when it came to questioning his orders or calling him an asshole in the middle of an operation. He always _did_ folllow orders though, so if Itachi actually complained about it he'd look like a stuck up bastard too petty to handle some good-natured teasing.

Not that Itachi cared if it ended up looking that way. It was just that if Itachi reprimanded him for for anything that didn't clearly endanger a mission, Eiji would be _winning._ Itachi couldn't verbalize what exactly, but he'd be winning _something._ None of the other captains reported having any problems with Eiji--and Itachi could name at least five who'd raise a stink about any perceived disrespect--so it was clear that Eiji had a problem with him specifically. Itachi was not going to give him the satisfaction of having the entire ANBU division rally to defend him against complaints from the traitor in their midst.

Of course, their little battle of wills was making Itachi's life harder anyway. Eiji himself was always careful never to cross the line into outright insubordination but every other person who tried to take a page out his book wasn't as subtle. Or as smart. Itachi was continually forced to show them that just because he was willing to let name-calling slide it didn't mean that he'd let anyone put their hands on him.

 _You let_ Eiji _put his hands on you,_ a voice in his head argued. 

To ruffle his hair or tap his shoulders but if he detected even the slightest hint of a threat from the brief touches, Itachi would happily break every bone in the offending arm. Holding back a grunt, he wrote down _Wasp_ right under _Wolf._ Eiji would detest Grass country. For a healer, he was surprisingly squeamish about blood and strange, sticky substances.  

"As the only real adult influence in your life," started Kakashi, "I feel like I should be doing something about your burgoening habit to drown yourself in work. It's like you're fifteen-year-old harried and unfulfilled middle-aged management drone just a sliver away from a dangerous breakdown."

As Itachi tuned him out, more and more people seemed to find their way to the abandoned warehouse. Someone must have had the brilliant idea to gather girls from one of Konoha's bars. The music itself did not get any louder but the cacophony of drunken attempts at conversation eventually got so bad that Itachi started wonder how reckless it would be to practice his mass-Genjutsu techniques on a drunken crowd of civilians. Too risky. Better to treat the whole thing like a meditating challenge. Could he succesfully tune them all out to the point where he could keep working? There were several other missions he needed to dole out, not to mention the patrolling squads that he needed to organize.

"Promise you'll talk to me if you ever start wondering just how annoying someone needs to get before you're justified in murdering them," said Kakashi.

"I promise," said Itachi as he mentally reviewed all the squads who'd been patrolling the civilians for the last month.

"Good thing I'm never having kids . . ." he heard Kakashi mumbling.

No one in ANBU liked patrolling duty. Captains acted like patrolling orders were the equivalent of being forced into carrying out D-ranked missions all over again. It was probably part of the reason everyone hated Itachi so much. The Commander had put him in charge of dealing with all "civilian-babysitting" assignments because he knew "most about that police work shit". So much for everyone forgetting he'd been an Uchiha any time soon. Still, he thought the accusations of favoritism were unfair.

Of course he sent out the best people on "genuine" ANBU missions and kept everyone else stuck on "bullshit guard duty". Skilled shinobi were less likely to die hunting rogue ninja and their ilk. Besides, it wasn't like Itachi liked anyone so much that he'd take into account their preference when assigning missions. He probably would have taken into account _Kakashi's_ preferences, but Kakashi wasn't in ANBU anymore.

And keeping Konoha peaceful and organized wasn't a "bullshit" duty anyway.

. . . Fugaku had been right. No one in Konoha respected what the Uchiha used to do for the village. Losing the clan hadn't made everyone realize how essential they were; it'd just made them rage about the insolence of a rebel clan brimming with unwarranted self-importance even as they despaired at how difficult it was to put together something resembling a police force.

For fuck's sake, he needed to stop thinking about his family or he _would_ start drinking, awful taste of alcohol be damned. When someone shuffled to his side and Itachi was almost grateful for the distraction. Or at least he was until he raised his head and met Eiji's dark grey eyes.

"Good night," said Eiji as he planted a chair right next to Itachi's and leaned his elbows on the old table Itachi was working on. "Creepy porn-reading guy." He nodded at an unconcerned Kakashi before turning his gaze on Itachi. "Fr--I mean Captain, sir. Happy birthday."

"What do you want?" asked Itachi.

"What makes you think I want something?" demanded Eiji, adopting an air of wounded indignation.

"Why else would you willingly initiate a conversation with me?"

"All right, genius. You caught me," said Eiji, rolling his eyes. "See that hot girl overthere?" He gestured at a purple-haired woman wearing a small green dress leaning against the wall several feet away from Itachi's table. A couple of other girls were accompanying her and they giggled when Itachi met their gaze.

"I see her," said Itachi, turning his eyes back on Wasp.

"Well, I'm trying to score with her tonight," explained Eiji, smiling and nodding, "and she has these voyeuristic tendencies, if you catch my drift."

"I don't," said Itachi, glancing at the giggling girls.

"It means she likes to see guys doing sex things to each other," clarified Eiji.

"I know what _voyeuristic_ means," snapped Itachi. "I don't know what it has to do with me."

Eiji let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. "She promised she'd give me a blowjob if I convinced you to make out with me in front of her."

"How old are you?" asked Kakashi before Itachi could formulate a response.

"Seventeen," answered Eiji.

"All right then," said Kakashi, visibly smiling under his mask. "Do carry on with your noble endeavour."

"Thanks, creepy porn guy," said Eiji, probably not realizing that with his broad shoulders, light brown stubble, and absurd height, he looked closer to thirty. "So what do you think, Captain?" He aimed a bright smile at Itachi.

"What exactly did the girl say?" asked Itachi, closing his notebook before Eiji noticed who'd be leading his next mission.

"That she'd get really excited if she got to see a big, strong guy like me making out with the cute, shy boy working at the table," answered Eiji in a mock-husky voice.

Itachi frowned, certain that no one had ever used the words "cute" and "shy" to describe him. Ever. He couldn't begin to guess what was going on in the girl's mind. "Maybe she meant him," he said, gesturing towards Kakashi.

"He's wearing a mask and reading porn in _public_ ," said Eiji. "Trust me, she meant you. You've had a bit of a growth spurt over the last few months and someone who doesn't know what an insuferable creep you are might get confused into thinking you're attractive."

"He's almost undoubtedly right," agreed Kakashi. "Except for the creep part. I do agree you're insuferable, though."

"You're famous," argued Itachi.

"Not among civilians."

"You're famous?" asked Eiji.

"Well known," corrected Kakashi, flipping to the next page of his Make-Out Paraside novel. Itachi looked at it and met the large green eyes of the beaming girl on the cover. "Copy Ninja, etc. . . ." mumbled Kakashi.

"Really?" Eiji sounded absurdly disappointed. "The old timers practically worship your legacy and you read _porn_ in _public_?"

"I could even do a dramatic reading," offered Kakashi.

" _Really?_ "

"Don't," warned Itachi. "Eiji, go away. I'm not going to let you kiss me--touch me with that hand and an army of medics won't be able to mend it."

"Augh." Eiji practically growled but he quickly took his hand back. "I don't know why I thought you'd be a little more mellow during your birthday. You've been giving off an air of bitchiness all night. Why are you even here? Isn't there someone you like who might be willing to put up with you for a couple of hours? Friends? Family members?"

"As a matter of fact, I _don't_ ," snapped Itachi, refusing to look away from Eiji's suddenly stricken face.

"Oh." Under any other circumstances, Eiji's uncomfortable squirm would've filled Itachi with satisfaction. "Uh . . . I forgot about that clan stuff," Eiji continued. "I'm sure they still care about you, but in a different way?"

"You're a bit of dick, aren't you?" said Kakashi in a deceptively light tone.

"Would you believe that last bit actually sounded kind of comforting in my head?" asked Eiji, glancing between Kakashi and Itachi while biting his lower lip a little pathetically.

"Yes," said Kakashi. "Sadly, that only makes you sound stupid rather than outright malicious. Go away before you make things worse."

Eiji looked like he wanted to argue but it didn't take him look to settle for offering Itachi an apologetic smile before slinking away, somehow managing to make his large frame seem small for a few seconds. Itachi waited a bit before opening his notebook, grateful that Kakashi wasn't the type to offer empty words of comfort.

A long time ago--only two years actually--he'd _had_ family members would've made the odious birthday party his parents used to arrange a little bit bearable.

But Shisui was dead and Sasuke might as well be.    

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was going to be kind of serious. Then it got stupid on me. Then it got serious again.


End file.
